YWCA expands pre-school

While the YWCA is this week heavily involved in putting the finishing touches on its “Miss Y” pageant Saturday at the City Centre, today it took time out to take pride in its considerable accomplishments in the field of education.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

There was reason to celebrate at the YWCA preschool today. The pre-school, which has 178 children, had become overcrowded. Today, the building has been expanded and there is now adequate space for learning.

Areas Representative Jorge Espat did the honours to officially open the new building. Although the ceremonies took place today, the staff and students moved into the new facility just after Easter. Principal Nadine Harris says because of the overcrowding she could not properly establish learning centres, which are required in pre-schools.

Nadine Harris, Principal, YWCA Pre-School

“So with this expansion, I have all my learning centres set up properly. My children can go there. I can teach what I need to teach. I can have my groupings and all. The teachers, well everyone is quite contented now.”

Jacqueline Woods

“Does this mean that the school can now accept more students or it will remain at 178?”

Nadine Harris

“It will remain at 178 or maybe I’ll take it to 200 and that will be it.”

Also on hand for the dedication were the students’ parents.

Dotsie Arnold, Parent

“Well what happened is that we notice that the children did not have a lot of space to work at the learning centres and that is a requirement of the ministry for pre-schools. Each day, they have a session called the chosen activity session and the children go into their little groups to socialize and play and this is where they will make use of all their senses and they will begin to show certain skills. Because of the limited space, many times they could not move around as much as possible to make use of their toys and so we were concerned because that’s an important part of their education that they were missing as pre-schoolers.”

Now that the YWCA has expanded its pre-school, its next project is to establish a day care centre.

The building, which cost $63,000, was made possible through donations from the Social Security Board, Canada and the Government of Belize. Other donations were also received from various business establishments.